white lace

 
I was raised on a farm, by god-fearing , christian people. church services
every Sunday, in my white cotton dress, simple & sturdy, black patent
shoes, small plastic handbag with two or three pennies in it for the offering,
& the requisite lace doily on my head. and all the future sundays of my
farm-wife life would be exactly like this.

…the sweet & bitter memory of that white lace doily, that protected the
minister’s hand when he blessed me, so that he wouldn’t soil it on my filthy
hair. ‘Filthy as your wicked soul, whore-child!’ which he explained to me in his
secret place, just before he inserted his staff of righteous indignation into
my pink & tender temptation, & the immediate explosion of ripping flesh &
blood, the out of my fucking mind horror scream & the prayer to satan-my-savior
to take me, because eternity in hell couldn’t be this bad…


and it isn’t.